foreign policy wise iraq poses some challenges. particularly now because of syria because maliki has become and emerged essentially as a supporter of bashar al-assad because he fear it is consequences of a sunni success in syria and what it might mean for his own domain and his own rule in iraq. so it's become a very serious foreign policy challenge and he, in fact, has been cooperating with iran which has been flying military supplies across iraq to damascus. >> woodruff: what do you see as the long lasting effects on u.s. foreign policy. >> i think these large costly conventional force operations we saw in iraq, we had in afghanistan has led many to recoil here in washington, particularly at senior levels of the obama administration to some degree i think it's propelled the white house towards a greater reliance on drones, intelligence operations, on the use of small special forces teams to target terrorist cells around the world as opposed to trying to do more traditional nation building and remaking of society. perform. >> wood